Lowell joins Mass. trend with plan to raise tobacco-purchase age

LOWELL -- The city's Board of Health wants to prohibit sales of tobacco products to anyone under 21, which would add Lowell to a growing list of Massachusetts communities making the change.

Other proposed changes include stricter regulations on the sale of flavored tobacco products that critics say are aimed at a young clientele.

The proposals would add Lowell to a long list of cities and towns making similar moves, and follow a bill aimed at making 21 the minimum buying age statewide.

"It seems like what we have before the board now is the next logical step," said Cesar Pungirum, the city's tobacco control director.

Nearly 120 Massachusetts communities have already pushed from 18 to 21 the age in which someone can buy tobacco products, according to the advocacy group Tobacco 21. That list already includes Andover, Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelmsford, Lawrence, Reading and Wilmington.

Worcester's health board also recently just pushed back the tobacco-buying age.

Flavored tobacco products, including chewing tobacco, cigars and e-cigarettes, would be allowed only at stores that earn 90 percent of more of their sales from tobacco products and don't sell any products that require food permits. That would exclude convenience stores that typically now sell those products.

The Retailers Association of Massachusetts has been a vocal opponent to regulations like those Lowell is seeking to pass.

The association "holds such proposals to be anti-local business and anti-consumer as they seek to ban licensed stores from selling legal products to adult consumers," said Ryan C.

Advertisement

Kearney, the association's general counsel. "They are also discriminatory as they essentially pick winners and losers in a very competitive retail marketplace -- the result is a government-imposed competitive disadvantage."

A public hearing on the proposals has been scheduled for 6 p.m. on Wednesday in the mayor's reception room in City Hall.

If adopted, the new regulations will take effect on Oct. 1.

Tobacco 21 argues that delaying the age at which people can buy tobacco is critical, because smokers are far more likely to start smoking at 18 than at 21. By making it more difficult for 18-, 19- or 20-year-olds to buy tobacco, the group hopes to keep many more people from even trying tobacco in the first place.

Dr. Lester Hartman, a pediatric specialist, developed the Tobacco 21 program after Needham, his hometown, became the first municipality in the country to ban sale of tobacco to anyone under 21. With Dr. Jonathan Winickoff, a pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School, the group has been pitching changes at boards of health across the state.

"I was convinced that this was going to work," Hartman said of gauging a starting trend once Needham made its vote.

Pungirum said he's seen a "tremendous increase" in flavored and nontraditional tobacco products, many that he said were packaged to be enticing to younger people.

"Every month I see different ones," he said.

Kearney disputed that the proposal will decrease tobacco or nicotine use, because those products will still be available, even if it means a shopper will go into another community to buy those products.

Many consumers look for one-stop shopping, Kearney said, so restricting sales to only certain retailers "will impact the sale of any number of other product lines," too.

In the meantime, a state bill seeking to raise the statewide tobacco-buying age to 21 recently passed the Senate. That bill would also ban e-cigarettes and similar non-traditional tobacco products and accessories from public places including schools.

Violators would be subject to fines of at least $100 for the first offense, $200 for the second offense, and $300 for each subsequent offense.

California and Hawaii are the only states to now ban selling tobacco to anyone under 21.

Follow Grant Welker on Twitter and Tout @SunGrantWelker.

Proposed Lowell tobacco regulations

* Current: Tobacco prohibited to those under 18.

* Proposed: Tobacco prohibited to those under 21. Definition of "tobacco product" is also broadened to include components of a tobacco product, e-liquids, e-cigarettes and similar products, regardless of nicotine content.

Welcome to your discussion forum: Sign in with a Disqus account or your social networking account for your comment to be posted immediately, provided it meets the guidelines. (READ HOW.)
Comments made here are the sole responsibility of the person posting them; these comments do not reflect the opinion of The Sun. So keep it civil.